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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26460526">The Best Secret She Ever Kept</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoe_Grimm/pseuds/Zoe_Grimm'>Zoe_Grimm</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:46:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,385</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26460526</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoe_Grimm/pseuds/Zoe_Grimm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Rebecca didn't die, but has been waiting for the right moment to reunite with her one true love, Mrs. Danvers. (Dark and angsty with light at the end.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca)/Rebecca de Winter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Best Secret She Ever Kept</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I took the name "Bridget" from a letter by Daphne du Maurier and added Andrea because I like it better, enjoy the story. ;)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She was sitting on the very edge of the bed in the middle of London, in the apartment Rebecca kept under a different name, confided in Danny with a wink and a "no one ever needs to know". She was twisting a handkerchief in her hands. A fine thing it was, white as a petal, with a tall and sloping R embroidered in the corner, bleeding into the letters "de W". Rebecca de Winter. </p><p>The telephone rang and Danny gave such a violent start that she nearly shook the whole bed. With a trembling hand, she reached out and took hold of the handset.</p><p>"Hello?"</p><p>"Hello, darling", the voice on the other end of the line said, that wonderfully familiar voice, and suddenly it was Danny who shook with relief, choking on her barely suppressed tears.</p><p>"Madam", she said, and hardly ever had a single word held such a wealth of emotion, even though it had barely been a week since Rebecca's supposed death, and yet it had been a week filled with sleepless nights.</p><p>The first night at Manderley when Rebecca didn't come home. The second and third and fourth night when Danny simply couldn't get away, had to act as if the lady of Manderley truly died. She didn't know, did she. She didn't know if their plan had worked, or if Maxim had truly shot dead the thing she held dearest in her very heart. Rebecca. The fifth night she travelled to London, to Rebecca's city apartment, because of course the other woman couldn't send word to Manderley, the chance that they might be found out was just too great. If Rebecca survived, if she was still alive... but on the sixth night, finally, she heard her voice. </p><p>"I've been calling this number every day, for a week", Rebecca said, "I didn't know when you could get here."</p><p>"I'm here now, Madam", Danny said, tears running down her cheeks, relief mingling with the heartache, the physical desire to hold Rebecca close. "Tell me where to go and I will go there".</p><p>"Not yet, dearest", Rebecca said softly, and so it began.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A year of waiting until things had tided over, until the inquest was done, until it had all been explained away. The account of Rebecca's illness was a fake, produced by Mrs. Danvers. She herself had added the dates into Rebecca's diary, imitating her mistress's hand. She did it so perfectly that nobody ever saw the difference. The doctor was an impostor. </p><p>And Maxim, he really had pointed the gun, but there had been no real bullets inside. Rebecca taunted him until he pulled the trigger, knew he would never let her leave Manderley otherwise, the scandal would be far too great. No, she had to disappear in such a way that he would never come looking for her, would never direct attention to the fact she was gone. And so the plot began.  </p><p>They had had a funeral for her. Buried a body that was not the real Rebecca. Maxim played his part better than either of them ever expected. Danny and Rebecca kept in touch through their London phone, very rarely, and Danny's heart still ached through it all. It constantly broke and mended itself in her chest when she heard Rebecca's voice, only to break again as she hung up. <em>Damn Rebecca and her schemes</em>, she wanted to say. Only she never did. Her love for Rebecca was simply too great. </p><p>When Maxim brought home his new wife, Danny nearly went off her head. She quietly shivered with a silent rage to see this incompetent, anxious little thing trot gracelessly where Rebecca had once tread, marking the ground as hallowed in her wake. And then the inquest came, the whole grand finale, the great show at the end of which Manderley burned down to the ground. The flames catching on Danny's sleeves, her wrists, the box of matches still caught in one hand. The car was waiting at the gates when she emerged from the woods, trailing whisps of smoke like ghosts behind her. But it was the ghost sitting in the car that had truly been haunting her. Rebecca, smiling up at the inferno. Rebecca catching Danny's gaze, arresting her breath right there in her chest. Rebecca, who simply commented "good show", and then took her far away.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Out of Cornwall, and then past London. All the way north to Scotland, where she had been hiding this past year. They arrived at the little cottage that Rebecca had moved into, and Danny sank down at the table, her mind and heart and body exhausted, utterly exhausted from setting Manderley aflame and living through a year, that whole, goddamn, terrible year without Rebecca, replaying phone calls in her mind. She looked up at her lover now and asked the question she had wanted answered for so long now:</p><p>"Why? Why did you do this to me? Why could we not just have run away?"</p><p><em>I would have followed you anywhere</em>, she didn't have to say. She was here, wasn't she, at a kitchen table in Scotland, and she had been there, in Rebecca's apartment in London, just as she had lived in Manderley for all those years. Rebecca took her hands, and regarded her with a very level gaze, and said, "because I wanted him to pay". </p><p>For the fraction of a second, the blink of an eye or the flutter of wings it takes before the moth flies into the flame, Danny wondered if she had fallen for a madwoman. A lunatic, that's what Rebecca was, wasn't she. A regular psychopath. But then Rebecca squeezed her hands and the moment passed and Danny knew she had lost the fight a long, long time ago. What did it matter if Rebecca was mad as a hatter. What did it matter even, who else she had slept with. She had a right to amuse herself, hadn't she? Collecting pawns for her game. There was only one thing that mattered now. </p><p>"Do you truly love me?", Danny asked, meeting Rebecca's grey green eyes, the colour of the sea. </p><p>"Yes", Rebecca said, with her very next breath, "yes, of course I love you."</p><p>"How do I know?", Danny said, her heart beating rapidly in her chest, harder even than when she had struck the first match and let it fall. "How do I know that you love only me, when you have given yourself to countless men, when you have been keeping secrets even from me?"</p><p><em>How do I know,</em> she wondered, <em>that this time, you'll stay?</em> For the sheer possibility of saying goodbye again broke her heart into infinitesimal little pieces. </p><p>Rebecca looked at her very steadily and replied, "because, my darling, the best secret I have ever kept - is you. Nobody could ever know how much I truly cared about you. I brought you with me to Manderley and I had to pretend, pretend that I would not much rather sleep by your side than his, pretend to care about that ridiculous house when really the only thing I cared about was that you were in it. They would have used you as a weapon, you see. A way to force me out. But if you truly want proof", she continued, her gaze so intent that it pierced all the way into Danny's soul, "then cut open my chest, and look unto my heart. And I promise you, you will see it bearing your name. Letter for letter, carved into the beating thing itself. Andrea. Bridget. Danvers." She punctuated each name with a kiss to Mrs. Danvers' hands. And it was then that the older woman melted, and allowed herself to slump on her chair, to fall forward into Rebecca's waiting embrace and cry. </p><p>"I will never leave you behind again", Rebecca promised softly, "never, never, never."</p><p>"Will you love me even though I am old?", Danny asked through her tears, half humour, half fear.</p><p>"You're not old", Rebecca scoffed, tenderly brushing the strands of Danny's hair back that were beginning to grey, "you're the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. And I want to look at you, for the rest of our days. Always."</p><p>"Always", Danny echoed, and they stayed like that, for a very long time.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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